Replies

Nixon’s foreign policy was carried out skillfully, and largely consisted of cleaning up LBJ’s mess. His trip to China was a master stroke. Detente with the USSR helped pave the way for the downfall of the it. Nixon’s China policy will eventually lead to the same end for the PRC.

Agreed. Foreign policy was where Nixon excelled.

Nixon stood by Israel, although he always had a problem with Jews and Ivy Leaguers. The Arabs failed to appreciate Nixon and Kissinger engineered the outcome of the 1973 war by persuading Israel to stop short of defeating the Egyptian army, which left Sadat with a colorable claim to have done better than any Arab army against Israel, which gave him the maneuver room to cut a peace deal for Sinai. Sadat was way ahead of the others, who were still stuck on the three no's. Sadat was also savvy enough to flip to the U.S. side, long before it became apparent to the rest of the world we would best the Sov's.

They could have gotten inflation under control much sooner had they recognized it's a monetary problem, but that didn't happen until hard money Paul Volker was appointed.

I served in the Carter military and it was just plain awful. We were short of people and money and our equipment was falling apart. Carter had even less economic sense than his predecessors with his energy regulation policies making matters worse.

Still, I give Carter credit for two things: there was a modest increase for defense in his last budget (although nothing like Reagan was to do) and he appointed Volker, which along with the Iranian hostage crisis and Ted Kennedy's primary challenge insured his doom in 1980. But those two things just save him from my vote for all time worst President. All in all Jimmuh was a dreadful President.

Nixon and Kissinger engineered the outcome of the 1973 war by persuading Israel to stop short of defeating the Egyptian army, which left Sadat with a colorable claim to have done better than any Arab army against Israel, which gave him the maneuver room to cut a peace deal for Sinai. Sadat was way ahead of the others, who were still stuck on the three no's. Sadat was also savvy enough to flip to the U.S. side, long before it became apparent to the rest of the world we would best the Sov's.

It's interesting that Sadat was the mastermind of this; he was covertly talking directly with Kissinger, and yet without K's knowledge planned the '73 war carefully to achieve limited objectives, namely establishing Egyptian control of just a few miles of the western Sinai, thus the entire Suez Canal. Despite massive superiority, Egypt stopped at a prearranged point, within the anti-aircraft missile umbrella, and wouldn't move the umbrella forward over the canal. The plan almost went under when Israel managed to launch the counterattack, build a bridgehead, and cross over into Africa.

Meanwhile, the Syrians, who had been unaware of Sadat's actual goal (flipping the script), wavered despite massive superiority; failure to fully break out despite their own SAM umbrella (which negated Israel's tactic of knocking out tanks from the air) and almost 1400 tanks was pretty foolish, or maybe just chicken. The skeleton of Israel's tank brigades fought with a desperate fury, and that may have been all that saved Israel long enough for the reserves (and US airlifts) to arrive.

Syria's post-1973 drive to annex Lebanon (in fact if not in name) went on almost 30 years, while Sadat wound up kicking out the Russians, ending the Egyptian imperialist ambitions in the Negev, negotiating a peace treaty with Israel, and ultimately getting assassinated.

Kissinger, at the outbreak of the 1973 war, is said to have remarked, of Israel, that it would do them good to be "bloodied."

Back in 1981 or so, I got started watching the PBS Nightly Business Report. Paul Kangas referred to Henry Kaufman as “Doctor Doom”, and referred to Paul Volcker as “Tall Paul”. :’) Alan Greenspan went directly from (among other things) a weekly commentary gig on NBR to being Fed chairman. IMHO, AG was one of the most significant figures of the late 20th century.